Archive for the 'Bassnectar' Tag Under 'Soundcheck' Category

The still-mighty vocalist performed live in Australia last month. Photo: Matt Roberts, Getty Images

Robert Plant: Maybe next year those never-ending Led Zeppelin reunion rumors will lead to something concrete, but not in 2013. The legendary group’s vocalist already has summer tour plans with his backing band, which has evolved from last decade’s Strange Sensation into today’s Sensational Space Shifters.

Southern California dates occur just a week after the tour starts in Dallas. Plant, 64, and his outfit play L.A.’s Shrine Auditorium on June 26, $45.50-$79.50, on sale Friday, April 26, at 10 a.m. Their stop at Santa Barbara Bowl on June 28 becomes available Saturday at noon, $44-$74. Major bonus: Grace Potter and the Nocturnals open both shows.

The Postal Service: We mentioned this in an earlier post about Coachella acts like Vampire Weekend and the xx adding big post-festival dates later this year. But the “imaginary band” featuring Ben Gibbard, Jimmy Tamborello and Jenny Lewis – the sensation of both weekends in Indio – has extended its summer jaunt commemorating the 10th anniversary of their album Give Up to include a series of West Coast dates.

•Lightning in a Bottle -- It's more than an electronic dance music festival – yoga workshops, consciousness-raising seminars and a variety of creative pursuits will be just as prevalent throughout Silverado Canyon this coming holiday weekend. But the biggest draw for this annual gathering in O.C.'s nether regions remains the top-quality DJ culture that LIB attracts.

This year's roster includes previous Coachella stars Bassnectar, the Glitch Mob, Shpongle and Apparat, along with more than two dozen more. Plus, as this is a production of L.A. performance-art troupe the Do Lab, the cirque-style rock and theatrics of the Lucent Dossier Experience will undoubtedly stage some dazzlers.

General admission tickets are $240 to enter the festival starting today, $185 starting Saturday, $100 for Sunday only. Kids under 12 are free, though everyone under 18 must be accompanied by a parent or legal guardian.

•Danzig Legacy -- Last Halloween at Gibson Amphitheatre, metal maven and horror-punk icon Glenn Danzig made a triple-bill out of himself: one set from his current self-named band, another from his previous group Samhain, and a headlining batch of Misfits classics that reteams him with guitarist Doyle Wolfgang von Frankenstein. Saturday night that same setup returns, this time to play a place three times as large: Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Irvine, 8808 Irvine Center Drive. Tickets start at $13.13 for lawn access and top out at $69.50. Show time is 7:15.

Electronica enthusiasts got excited about this earlier this week: The Do Lab's annual Lightning in a Bottle festival is returning to Oak Canyon Ranch, in Silverado near Irvine Lake, for another Memorial Day weekend of dance and ambient music, yoga, meditation and more, May 24-28.

Getting the most out of the festival requires purchase of a full-weekend pass, $215 in advance, $240 at the door. Two-day passes (entering the grounds May 27 at noon) cost $165 in advance, $20 more on site, while single-day tickets (entering May 28 at 10 a.m.) run $85 now, $100 day of show.

Also, kids 12 and under are free, while those age 13-16 are $100 at the door only. Anyone under 18 must be accompanied by a parent or legal guardian. Click here for more info.

Buy sooner than later -- last year sold out. This year's RV and car camping passes are already gone, too.

Wait a second: Isn't this December? Isn't this when the record biz typically slows to a crawl, tosses all their hottest talents at radio festivals and prepares for an extended holiday vacation?

Apparently not this year. We always know to expect a few major arrivals before Christmas comes, but this week has more than its share: the first posthumous recordings from the late Amy Winehouse, the most instantly appealing Black Keys disc yet, a foray into dubstep and heavy electro from Korn, a career-spanning set from the Cure (their first official tour memento since the early '90s), a live DVD from hip-shaking Shakira and the latest star-studded efforts from Robin Thicke, T-Pain and and the mighty Roots crew.

But add to that a slew of reissues, repackages and retrospectives and this week's rundown is as chock-full as a Super Tuesday in September. View the latest wares here, or click the pic of Amy to see more.

September 12th, 2011, 7:20 pm by DAVID HALL, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

The first time I saw Bassnectar was around Halloween two years ago, during an early evening slot at the first and only edition of what turned out to be one of O.C.'s biggest flops in recent years, the Halos N Horns festival. At the time, the electronic artist born Lorin Ashton was merely a saving grace amid a ragtag lineup topped by mediocre acts (Korn was the headliner, that should tell you everything).

But I realize now how immediately gripped I was by his talent. There was something completely arresting about the lanky, grinning figure headbanging behind his turntables to overly bassed-out remixes of Metallica and Nirvana, his stringy black hair waist-long and enveloping his face like the cloak of some fiendish magistrate.

His sound that night was grossly stunted by Costa Mesa's strict sound ordinance, but I remember a moment when the technician gave in to his repeated requests for more volume, boosting his bass for the final few moments of the set to an eardrum-rattling level. It caused a distinct shift in the largely lethargic crowd: for the first time that evening, they started dancing.

And not just in a latent, let's -groove-a-little way. People began thrashing, jumping and headbanging right along with Bassnectar, surging toward the stage with visceral excitement.

Editor's note: Unless you're obsessively following a favorite band (or five) via your social media of choice (Arcade Fire's set streamed earlier this evening on Vevo, as other performances will), the thing you've probably heard most about Bonnaroo 2011 is that a 32-year-old Pittsburgh woman was found dead outside her tent Thursday night. That's a shame, but thankfully a rarity at festivals like these -- and not the sort of news that should overshadow what's really going on in Manchester: loads of great music.

Finding time to write, however, is another matter: Who has time when there are more sets to see? David's catching up as he can but was only able to fire off so many thoughts about Day 2 while darting between stages throughout Day 3 -- and there are still more late-night jams to come. Stay tuned. Plenty more to come.

* * * *

The Sword (That Tent, 3:30 p.m.): Some might say metal doesn't fit the Bonnaroo vibe, but this Austin-based quartet undermined any such assumptions during its afternoon set. Appropriately invoking the festival's predominately Southern spirit, the group hit its peak with a shred-filled cover of ZZ Top's "Cheap Sunglasses."

Wait, I'm confused. Didn't Roxy Music just reunite again at the start of the year for a series of dates in the U.K. and Down Under, celebrating the art-rock legends' 40th anniversary? So how come it's only Bryan Ferry who's going to play the Greek Theatre on Oct. 15?

Not that I'm complaining -- a Ferry visit is always welcome, and it's been nearly a decade since he embarked on a solo stateside jaunt. (Consequence of Sound's report suggests he hasn't been here since then, but Roxy Music last played U.S. dates in 2003, including a night at Pacific Amphitheatre's reopening season that summer.)

Leaving the rest of Roxy at home makes sense, seeing as Ferry, who will be 66 once he plays L.A. again, hasn't done much promotion of his 13th solo album, last October's Olympia. But can you blame me for wishing he would spotlight it in the thick of a Roxy show anyway? Maybe bill it as an evening with Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music?

Ah, well, it's still can't-miss stuff for fans -- probability is high that we'll get some Roxy material amid choice solo stuff at the Greek. Tickets, $40-$85, go on sale Friday, June 10, at 10 a.m.

But before I split, here are some standout moments from Saturday at the 10th annual Sasquatch! Music Festival at the Gorge Amphitheater in George, Wash.:

• Local Natives: Leading with the infectiously catchy "Camera Talk" and the anthemic "World News" -- the latter causing a giant spontaneous dance party that overtook the Gorge's entire top tier above the main stage -- the rising L.A.-based indie rockers proved their worth yet again.

It's unlikely that anything the Natives do in the near-future will measure up to their spellbinding performance with a full orchestra at Walt Disney Concert Hall in February, but this set was a whopper just the same -- "by the far the biggest show" so far, according to multi-instrumentalist Kelcey Ayer. A rousing performance of "Sun Hands" -- preceded by an announcement by frontman Taylor Rice that this would be the final gig before the band heads home to record a new record -- imbibed the audience with a zap of energy. Quite rare for a mid-afternoon set.

• Wye Oak: One of the festival's few newcomers (this 10th anniversary was packed full of veterans in spirit of celebration), the Maryland-based duo of guitarist/chanteuse Jenn Wasner and drummer/keyboardist Andy Stack easily attracted a sizable following on the more intimate Yeti Stage for an early-evening set. The band is three albums into its career (the hard-hitting Civilian arrived earlier this year), and each song -- the loud-quiet-loud gems "Holy Holy," "That I Do" and "For Prayer," among them -- resonated with a galvanic beauty perfectly suited for this venue's nearly surreal atmosphere.

Our man David Hall has been on the scene since early Saturday (longtime contributor "Desert Jeff" Miller has been as well), and though there hasn't been much time yet to string together any cogent thoughts on the merits of the festival itself, David did send back a bonanza of photos, heavy on stuff from Day 1's standouts, including the West Coast return of the Strokes (that's vocalist Julian Casablancas above) and the first performance from members of the Grateful Dead in Golden Gate Park since the early '70s -- in this case, bassist Phil Lesh and guitarist Bob Weir, operating once more under their Furthur banner. (Catch them more locally Sept. 21 at the Greek Theatre, $34.75-$64.75.)

Also in the mix from Saturday's haul: more from My Morning Jacket (already so impressive Thursday night at the Greek), the mighty Wolfmother, the wild 'n' woolly Gogol Bordello, the chest-thumping beats of Bassnectar and plenty of shots of attendees ... who, if you ask me, seem far less enthused than the good folks at Coachella. Stay tuned for more -- David and Desert Jeff are apt to send along scattered reactions to Outside Lands once the work week gets underway.

Photo of Strokes frontman Julian Casablancas by David Hall, for The Orange County Register.

If Sublime with Rome -- that is, Sublime without Brad Nowell -- is not Sublime at all, as so many haters contend, does that also mean that Billy Corgan plus three hired guns shouldn't really be considered the Smashing Pumpkins?

Regardless, Corgan has been carrying on as such lately, issuing his 44-song opus Teargarden by Kaleidyscope, one free download at a time, as he has them ready for marketplace. He's pretty much been getting raves so far, too, or at least for the four tracks (collective subtitle: Songs for a Sailor) that have been released since late last year. At that pace, most of his generation may have retired by the time he puts out the 11th four-cut EP in the series.

No further lineup details about the event have been revealed, apart from Slash being named the honoree of an Aug. 26 tribute at the nearby House of Blues. As they did last year, when 10,000 people turned out, organizers will once again close off Sunset Boulevard from San Vincente Boulevard to Doheny Drive in order to set up two stages, food vendors and a beer garden, plus all the Sunset Strip clubs will be hosting performances open to attendees of the SSMF.